{"id":121406,"date":"2015-09-12T06:49:36","date_gmt":"2015-09-12T06:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=121406"},"modified":"2015-09-14T07:41:02","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T07:41:02","slug":"nato-caught-surprised-by-russias-move-into-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=121406","title":{"rendered":"NATO Caught \u2018Surprised\u2019 By Russia\u2019s Move Into Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Baron — Defense One Sept 10, 2015<\/h1>\n
\"U.S.<\/a>

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Brett Heimbigner. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

When Russia sent military forces into Syria last weekend, it caught NATO by surprise and proved that its members can neither stay ahead of threats nor even decide which ones are the most pressing, the alliance\u2019s intelligence director said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAre we keeping up with threats?\u2026Absolutely not,\u201d said U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Brett Heimbigner Thursday. \u201cThe demands for intelligence\u2026 to accurately deal with some of these crises is clearly insufficient.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Heimbigner\u2019s latest frustration: \u201cFrom an alliance perspective, what Russia is doing and the ability of Russia to surprise us on a very consistent basis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to get some warning, but did not see from a strategic perspective that one, necessarily, coming until just a couple days ago,\u201d he said, speaking at the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington, D.C. Defense One is a media sponsor of the event, which is held by AFCEA International and the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, or INSA.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the mainstage later, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart confirmed media reports that Russian forces had moved into Syria, but he and CIA Director John Brennan said they were yet unclear as to their makeup or purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brennan spoke calmly of the development and was quick to say that throughout the Syrian conflict Russia has remained cooperative on other security areas, including the spread of terrorists outside of the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI and others have spoken to our Russian counterparts about our shared concerns,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for NATO, Heimbigner described an alliance divided: its Baltic and eastern members worry more about Russia, while southern members are more concerned about the Islamic State, whose \u201cgrowth is exponentially higher than what they anticipated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, we are now in a situation where, as an alliance, we can\u2019t even come up with a coordinated threat assessment overall\u201d because both groups want their concerns to take priority, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

One problem, Heimbigner said, is there are not enough intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to go around: \u201cWe have a woeful shortage of ISR. When we go to ask the nations to contribute, it\u2019s all committed and just not available.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It may turn out two conflicts become one, with Russia\u2019s move into Syria and the flow of refugees from the Middle East. \u201cMy southern flank is the Turkish border, and I\u2019m very concerned that\u2019s something we\u2019re going to have to address in the near term,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NATO’s intelligence director admits the alliance was caught off guard by Russia’s recent moves in Syria<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,91,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-russia","category-syria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121406"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121445,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121406\/revisions\/121445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}